Kate Walsh Talks About Her Whirlwind Romance

Unlike her romantically challenged Grey’s Anatomy character, Kate Walsh knows love when it finds her – she and Alex Young got engaged in May after dating for just three months.

“[We’ve been together] since February,” Walsh, 39, told PEOPLE at a poolside party for facialist Kate Somerville at the Beverly Wilshire hotel.

“I know – I’m literally living the dream. But you know when you know. I was not expecting it, so it’s kind of amazing.”

While Walsh says she loves “everything” about her fiancé, a production co-president at 20th Century Fox, she admits she’s partial to his looks. “He’s pretty handsome,” she said, adding with a giggle, “He’s ridiculously handsome!”

And it doesn’t hurt that he’s helping with the wedding plans – well, in his own way: “He’s really great. He’s there, but he’s not in the way! He wants to contribute.”

So, she’s taken charge. “You start getting into this and you don’t want to be a cliché, but then suddenly you’re like, ‘I’m doing all this stuff!’ ”

Alex Young and Kate WalshConsidering she’s also preparing for her new series, Private Practice, which starts shooting in mid-July, her schedule must be packed. “It’s insane, yeah,” she said. But she has a mantra that keeps her centered when it comes to wedding planning: “Delegate, delegate, delegate!”

To help her manage things, she and Young are taking a quick vacation. “We’re going to a balmy island,” she said. “This is my getaway, and as soon as I come back we just hit the ground running.”